Daily Archives: 14/03/2019

The NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency has awarded a contract for BlackBerry’s SecuSUITE for Government to encrypt the conversations of its technology and cyber leaders wherever they communicate – in the workplace, at home or when travelling abroad.

The NCI Agency helps NATO’s 29 Member Nations communicate securely and work together in smarter ways. It acquires, deploys and defends communication systems for NATO’s political decision-makers and Command Centres, working on the front lines against cyber attacks. Due to the classified nature of the information the NCI Agency handles, it’s critical that all communications remain secure, combating any opportunity for a cyber criminal to electronically eavesdrop on conversations.

“As cyber criminals and state-sponsored actors become increasingly more sophisticated, we needed a highly secure way for our cyber leaders to have phone conversations with people inside and outside of our organisation regardless of where they are in the world,” said Kevin Scheid, general manager of the NCI Agency. “BlackBerry’s voice encryption technology helps solve this challenge and strengthens our elite cyber defence strategy.”

Dr Christoph Erdmann, senior vice-president of BlackBerry SecuSMART at BlackBerry, responded: “Eavesdropping on calls is one of the easiest ways to gain access to private information. We’re extremely proud that the NCI Agency, a world leader in the development and use of technology that keeps NATO nations secure, has put its trust in BlackBerry’s software to secure voice communication. No matter the operating system or ‘thing’ used to communicate, BlackBerry’s arsenal of cyber security technology ensures that our customers’ data remains private.”

BlackBerry’s SecuSUITE for Government supports Android and iOS smart phones and tablets, and can be can be installed on-premise, in a Data Centre or in the cloud.

Use cases for the solution include:

*Secure conferencing: Encrypts conversations between a secure conference bridge and a SecuSUITE for Government-enabled devices

*Secure landing: Encrypts mobile devices to a landline within a network

*Break-in: Protects any communication between a mobile or landline on the user’s home network to a SecuSUITE for Government-enabled mobile device

*Break-out: Secures mobile devices to the employee’s home network and from there to external mobile or landlines through PSTN extension

SecuSUITE for Government has been evaluated and certified to be compliant with the Common Criteria protection profile for VoIP applications and SIP servers. It has also earned a NIAP certification and has been placed on the NSA Commercial Solutions for Classified Program component list of products certified for use on classified systems.